


Steel Beauty

by Nadja_Lee



Category: Alexander (2004)
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt, Fluff, Light Angst, Love, M/M, Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-24
Updated: 2005-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23017507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadja_Lee/pseuds/Nadja_Lee
Summary: Ptolemy, as an old man, writes in his diary about how he saw Hephaistion and his love for a King.
Relationships: Alexandros III of Macedon | Alexander the Great/Hephaistion of Macedon
Kudos: 51





	Steel Beauty

Cleitus once said, “In the ways of my country, those who love too much lose everything. Those who love with irony, last.”

He was right of course but no one could tell Alexander and Hephaistion this. And still I wonder if not they already knew. Or rather if not Hephaistion always know. Alexander, in his grandeur and glory, lived for his dreams. He kept searching for something which, I often thought, he had already found. 

We all grew up together; Alexander and we, his generals. From their first meeting it was clear that Hephaistion was special to Alexander. Somehow the mild mannered and softly spoken boy had reached something in the young King. In many ways the two of them are as different as day and night which might be why they seemed to fit together as perfectly as Plato’s theory about soul mates having been one soul split in two bodies. Hephaistion, while a great warrior, was more a diplomat than a strategist and Alexander was the reverse. Where Hephaistion let reason and calm speak for him Alexander was always filled with emotions and passions. Alexander could never have played the role Hephaistion did.

I noticed all Hephaistion had to endure for his love. The isolation, the teasing. Only his own men stood behind him, everyone else either envied him the High King’s favours or thought him weak for returning to his bedchamber whenever Alexander asked for him, despite Alexander’s marriage, the eunuch and all his other lovers. Hephaistion would appear only one among many to hold the King’s favours let I never doubted he was the one who was special. 

The others might think him weak but I never did. In many ways I believe he would have to be the strongest of them. First he had to fight to just get Alexander’s mother to accept him. Then he had to fight Alexander’s generals, my friends, who never grew to respect him. I think his soft manners and beauty misguided them. He followed the true ways of Greece; reason over passion. None of us ever did so. He was the truest general for Alexander. I do not know if ever he truly believed in Alexander’s dream but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that he never publicly defied him. Not once. On the contrary he would do his best to help Alexander fulfil his goals and his dreams. The rest of us never believed and we never really made it easy on Alexander to reach his dreams…for any of them to reach their dreams. How quickly we forgot that we were supposed to stick together; that we were supposed to guide yet also support and help our King.

I do not know if Hephaistion ever took another lover than Alexander but I doubt it. Though he mastered his passions then they ran deep. He would have died for Alexander and gladly so. He would do anything for him and he did. His short life seemed to hold only one joy at the end; Alexander. The generals had isolated him, his father had died…he was alone. Even the one person he loved so dearly, who he had sacrificed so much for, he had to share. With a nation, a people, generals, wives and lovers.

I could never live like that. Give so much and get so seemly little in return yet I truly believe Hephaistion did not see it as a sacrifice. He understood and respected that he would not always come first in Alexander’s life; that there were other desires and obligations. What he gave up to remain close in Alexander’s heart I have no doubt he found a small price to pay. 

Through the years my admiration for Hephaistion grew and while we had never been close despite growing up together we became closer now. His joy at having me as a friend was heartbreaking for I knew why; he had no one else with whom to speak. Despite it all never once did he ever speak ill of Alexander, to me or anyone else. In fact he passionately defended him at every turn, making him even less popular as the army lost the will to fight when the years passed by.

The other generals believed him weak for his faithfulness. Weak for his love. Yet I see now, first now when both of them are dead and buried, that not only was he the one who loved Alexander best of all…he was also the strongest of us all. He was content with staying in the shadows and let his golden lover shine. He was proud of him, happy for him. Even his dying words had been concern for his lover and not for himself. Sometimes when I think about it I want to go back in time and knock Alexander on the head; hard. He had the world in Hephaistion’s eyes…what more could he want? But he did want so much. He loved so much. I cannot really condemn him for that for it was this endless and often pained search of something I doubt even he knew what was that made Alexander great. That made him able to conquer the world.

Still I know who and what built an empire. I know whose hands held Alexander up and gave him the fire to go on, gave him a safe place to be when his world broke down which it often did. Like a ghost Hephaistion’s hands of love can be felt throughout this empire. An empire we let fall.

No. Hephaistion will in my memory remain beauty yet strong. He never bowed, never let himself be conquered or cowered. He was proud of his special place in Alexander’s heart and refused to hide this fact.

I look down at the blood red ring at my finger and I smile bittersweetly. I saw what Hephaistion’s death did to Alexander. They truly were one. Hephaistion who had always been Alexander’s silent shadow had also been his strength and comfort. Without him by his side Alexander withered away.

Cleitus had been right of course. Alexander and Hephaistion had lost everything; even Alexander’s empire are now gone. Yet still they reached further than any mortal ever had. Alexander conquered a world and I know more than anyone else, save the Gods, the thanks for him being able to do so lies with Hephaistion.

I gently stroke the ring. So much love, so much passion, despair and intensity are in this ring that sometimes I feel it is as if I can see my two friends before me once again. We killed Alexander but we had killed Hephaistion long before then. Yet despite it all, through everything thrown against them I have no doubt that their love remained and that it remained pure and strong.

I wonder how the future will tell the tale of Alexander. Will they remember Hephaistion? Will they tell of the love that existed between them as strongly as if it was a physical thing? Will they see the steel in Hephaistion’s soft beauty? Will they see the strength in his proud but valiant and gentle bearing?

“Ptolemy.”

Someone calls my name and I end this entry. I hope before I go to the afterlife I will have finished this journal about Alexander, Hephaistion and all I went through standing on the sidelines of this, the greatest story yet told of love, conquests, betrayal, madness, pain, sacrifices, loyalty and everything in between. This private journal. My private observations, my private failings, fears and mistakes. Maybe one day it will be found and if so I hope future generations will be better to dig better, see behind the façade and not as quick to pass judgement. Through flames, passions, love, despair, tears and pain…we should have gotten this at least. Should we not?


End file.
